Well, summer is here and with it all the great, life-altering plans I have for myself. This is the summer I'm really going to search out my destiny, not just await its arrival. This is the summer I'm going to take those first important steps to becoming the person I always knew in my heart I could be, not just walk the same old path. This is summer I finally sign up for NetFlix. This is the summer I finally make use of my Wii Fit. This is the summer I make my own frozen treats with nothing but orange juice, toothpicks, Saran Wrap, ice cube tray and a complete disregard for the fact that a "Sunshine on a Stick" sounds like something you bring to a rave:

Yes, Summer will be my moment. Summer will be my time to shine, to get my act together, to improve not only my life and outlook but also my very soul. Summer will definitely be my year. Uh, season. Whatever.

And just to prove that this isn’t another case of idle boasting or mothballed dreams, I have decided to enroll in an adult education course or 12. And while I was indeed surprised to learn just how many classes are no more than a chance to get an autograph from a D-list celebrity or learn that shyness is a poor tool in self-promotion, there were a few options that sounded if not educational at least not entirely booked up:

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Just a few inside jokes for fans of R.E.M.'s 1982 EP. Every song from that record made the cut except my favorite, "Gardening at Night," which I couldn't work in without the dialogue getting truly strange:

Sally: What do you mean you and Faye were gardening at night? Is that some sort of euphemism?

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Note: The following conversation has been edited so as not to spoil the fun for loyal viewers of "Lost," both those up-to-date on the series and those who are currently seasons behind, like yours truly.

Mom and I talk on the phone.

Mom: Ces, I have a prediction about what's going to happen in the season finale of Lost...

Ces: Don't say anything, Mom!

Mom: Why not?

Ces: Because every time you say you have a "prediction" about what's going to happen on the show it turns out you either previously read some spoiler in a magazine or you just end up divulging waaaay to much about an epsiode I have yet to see.

Mom: Now that's not true...

Ces: Mom, last week you said you wanted to talk about the show. I said I didn't want to because I'm like two seasons episodes and didn't want anything revealed prematurely. You said you had no intention of revealing any such information. Then you proceed to tell me (Edit: major spolier).

Mom: But this is different! It hasn't happened yet. Plus, it's not a fact. It's a prediction.

Ces: Okay, Mom. What is it?

Mom makes a very, very detailed prediction about the season finale of Lost.

Ces: Wow, that's...that's really precise.

Mom: I just have this feeling.

Ces: I mean, that's really precise. And...and there hasn't been any set-up for it at all. How did you even come to that prediction?

Join team league. Discover one championship season later how much family was embarrassed by your absolute commitment to “Competitive Red Light Green Light”

Get in touch with spiritual side. Experience flashback to when you and Father Hanahan played “Strip Candyland.”

Enroll in adult education class to meet single women. Realize what a sausagefest “Introduction to Sylvia Plath” truly is.

Direct passion and energy to worthy cause. Over three months come to redefine “worthy cause” as “anything that can be accomplished with spare change or leftover Chinese food.”

Pledge to always be there for your children this summer as a parent, a role model and a friend, no matter what the demands of work or life. Wind up giving each kid 20 bucks a week and a simple set of life instructions, like “Go north.”

Tell self in August that this fall is when you’re really going to get things done. Curse own name come December.

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Pens the comic strips Sally Forth and Medium Large. Writes for The Onion News Network. Serves as head writer for the PBS series SeeMore's Playhouse (for which his script won two regional Emmys). Was afraid of the color yellow until about age nine. Tans a little too well to be trusted by security.

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A simple grilled cheese sandwich. Something that can be procured anywhere at any time. Nothing too exciting, right?

But what if I put a little butter on the bread before I grilled that sandwich? That would add a little extra zing, right? And what if instead of using plain old American cheese I opted for something a tad more exotic, like Camembert, Stilton or Roquefort? Now we're talking, right?

And what if instead of using bread for my grilled cheese sandwich I used two large blocks of pure platinum? And what if instead of eating the platinum I sold it and then used that small fortune as venture capital for a Beijing-based conglomerate that could take advantage of Chinese local business incentives, cheap labor, lax environmental laws and surging global interest in the fastest-growing economy in the world, thereby ensuring returns in the billions of dollars even in the face of a collapsing U.S. dollar and a massive industrial shift from the technical to service business sector? Wouldn't that be nice?

That's exactly what Francesco Explains It All is. In an endless buffet of indistinguishable tastes, it's the grilled platinum Stilton cheese sandwich that could forever destabilize geoeconomics. Care for a bite?